IRWIN AND JOAN JACOBS

Birthplace: Irwin was born in New Bedford, Mass., and Joan in New York City.

Education: Joan has a bachelor’s degree from Cornell. Irwin has a bachelor’s from Cornell and a master’s and doctorate from MIT.

Family: Settled in La Jolla in 1966. The couple have four adult sons, all living in San Diego, and 11 grandchildren.

Professional background:

Joan — Early career as school and hospital dietitian in New York and Massachusetts; past member of UCSD Board of Overseers; co-founded Friends of the Stuart Collection at UCSD; active on boards for UCSD Foundation and La Jolla Playhouse; chairwoman, San Diego Symphony Endowment Foundation; chairwoman, International Collectors group for Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego; chairwoman, Salk Institute’s 50th anniversary gala.

Irwin — Faculty member at MIT, 1959-66; professor at UCSD, 1966-72; co-founder and CEO, Linkabit Corp.; VP of merger partner M/A-COM; co-founder and former chairman and CEO of Qualcomm; chairman, Salk Institute’s board of trustees; chairman, National Academy of Engineering.

“As in business, you look for opportunities where you can make a difference. You act on those. Some of them work out; some do not,” said Irwin Jacobs, shown here with his wife, Joan, in their La Jolla home. — John Gastaldo

Warren Buffett joined Bill and Melinda Gates in December in inviting a dozen or so West Coast billionaire couples to a Silicon Valley hotel for a secret afternoon meeting followed by dinner.

Out of that gathering and two similar dinner sessions in New York, the groundwork was laid for the recent announcement that 40 U.S. billionaires have agreed to pledge 50 percent or more of their wealth to philanthropic causes.

One of the couples is from San Diego — telecommunications entrepreneur Irwin Jacobs and his wife, Joan. The Jacobses recently agreed to dedicate at least 50 percent of their wealth to charity. Currently, that would total about $600 million.

QUESTION: How did the concept of a “giving pledge” arise?

IRWIN: The meeting didn’t start out as a request for a pledge. We went around the table, introduced ourselves and talked about our own approaches toward philanthropy and the different areas that we were interested in, whether there were ways we might cooperate, how to improve our effectiveness and how to encourage others to join in.

Should there be a pledge of some type? Should there be a group that is formed and meets regularly? A variety of possibilities was discussed.

QUESTION: How does the pledge work?

JOAN: They’ve decided there will not be any restrictions. It is all our choice of charities, so that was very comfortable for us. There was a broad spectrum of how people interpreted charity. For instance, one person had an idea for an implantable device, I believe, that would be useful to society, and he was going to fund its development.

QUESTION: Will there be a monitoring mechanism?

IRWIN: No.

QUESTION: Did your children play a role in the pledge decision?

JOAN: Basically, Irwin and I feel this is our money and, while we’re alive, we will decide what we’ll do with it. Our children know our finances; they know what we’re doing. But we didn’t go to them and ask, “Is this all right with you?” because that’s not how we operate. They are well taken care of already.

IRWIN: None of this comes as a surprise to them. In our particular case, our children had stock very early in Qualcomm, and Linkabit before that, so we felt fairly comfortable with our family and the way they were responding to having this funding. Our whole family has been focused on what is its best use for our money and how we can help others make a significant difference.

QUESTION: What percentage of your wealth did you pledge?

IRWIN: The pledge is for 50 percent or more. We agreed that we would meet the pledge. That didn’t require any change in our current planning. Our existing plans already account for more than 50 percent (of our wealth). So we’re simply saying yes, we do agree that at least half of our estate will go to charity, and we’d like to see others do the same.

QUESTION: How much money will that pledge amount to?

IRWIN: It’s hard to tell. It largely depends on what happens to Qualcomm, although we have many other investments. Qualcomm has its ups and downs in terms of stock price. The numbers published in Forbes magazine are reasonably accurate. (Forbes’ March issue places the Jacobses’ wealth at $1.2 billion.)

QUESTION: Among other projects, you’ve reportedly pledged $120 million for the San Diego Symphony, a similar amount for the Jacobs School of Engineering at the University of California San Diego, $75 million for UCSD’s future specialty hospital and $20 million to replace the central library in downtown San Diego. Which charity gets the lion’s share of your money?

JOAN: It’s hard to say because we give to both the School of Engineering and symphony annually. They’re probably neck and neck, to tell you the truth. We also support both our alma maters — MIT and Cornell University. Irwin and I both graduated from Cornell. That’s where we met. We’ve also given major gifts to the La Jolla Playhouse and the UCSD Foundation.

IRWIN: We also look to see if others are providing good support and, therefore, it’s not critical that we do so. For instance, the San Diego Zoo has been getting very good support from others, and although we’re very supportive, it wasn’t one that we really felt we had to act on.

QUESTION: How much of your giving is centered in the San Diego area?

JOAN: I would say 75 percent. A lot of it we want to keep local. We live here. We love living here. We want to support the city.

QUESTION: You said your existing plans already exceed 50 percent of your estate. What percentage are you committing?

IRWIN: It varies depending on what the estate ends up being and what we do as we go forward. As in business, you look for opportunities where you can make a difference. You act on those. Some of them work out; some do not. Sometimes something important comes up and we feel we have to support it. For example, the new medical center at UCSD. Although we had not focused too much on medical contributions, we thought that it could be very special for the region, for improving medical care, for conducting research in a timely fashion. I was also impressed with the architectural design.

QUESTION: How do you feel about being publicly identified as one of the first 40 pledge makers?

IRWIN: Probably the answer is, we prefer not. Then the question is: Do the positive aspects outweigh the negatives? We decided they did, and the family agreed and thought we should go ahead.

QUESTION: San Diego lacks the corporate presence that some other major cities have, so are people constantly knocking at your door to ask for money?

IRWIN: Let’s just say there are many opportunities.

QUESTION: Wealth is a blessing, but it can also be a burden. Do you spend a great deal of your time giving your fortune away?

IRWIN: Well, it’s not just deciding on new gifts, it’s really interacting with charities and activities that we’ve already provided support for, and that does take a reasonable amount of time. Whenever we have some spare time, we talk about how things are going with different groups. As we get very close to making a significant donation, it does take quite a bit of time to talk to the people and research it. We try to get reasonable agreements upfront so the funding will be well-handled.

One thing we hope works out OK with the (new central) library is that the hours don’t suddenly get squeezed back down. That’s one of the reasons we added $1 million a year for the first five years, and another family did the same thing, to make sure the library will be open substantial hours. Otherwise, it defeats the purpose.

QUESTION: From where did you get your commitment to philanthropy?

IRWIN: Growing up, there was always a little box on the table at home that we would drop a few coins into. It was during the Depression, so we never had too much money, but it was always important to provide some support.